Hamas official, Khalil al-Hayya, stressed that the Israeli occupation is using the prisoners for media and political gains.

In an interview for Al-Mayadeen, al-Hayya said that Gaza’s reconstruction cannot be tied to the prisoner exchange and that they both follow different paths.

According to al-Hayya, “there will come a day when Al-Quds will be at the forefront of a regional and supra-regional struggle,” adding that the meeting of the Hamas delegation with Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was important.

He went on to say “we have arrangements for delegations from Hamas to visit Algeria and Iraq.” He also welcomed Egypt’s regional role, and its role in the Palestinian portfolio, whether in brokering truces or in the prisoner exchange.

The Hamas official also spoke to all normalizers saying: “This chain of normalization must stop. This is harmful both to you and to the Palestinian cause.”

As for Saudi Arabia, al-Hayya said: “We have no negative stance towards it, and relations have always been good with it, but it has changed. So we feel that we must ask: why has Saudi Arabia changed its stance towards Palestine and Hamas?”

He also added that Hamas’s hands are extended in friendship to resume relations with Saudi Arabia, wishing that it remain secure and a leader in the region.

Al-Hayya also stressed that “the occupation cannot take in negotiations what it could not take through the sword, and we will not accept the conditions for reconstruction,” pointing out that “Hamas” has begun restoring houses that were damaged in Gaza and has always stood side by side with its people in both war and peace.

On martyr Nizar Banat, al-Hayya said: “a political decision was made by the Palestinian authority to eliminate Nizar Banat, and they are just trying to cover up for themselves,” adding “if the authority took responsibility, there would not have been so much confusion, and things would not have remained unresolved.”